Slug nematodes... yay or nay?
Muvs Dashwood
Posts: 92
Thinking about them but have no idea if they are effective at all, or perhaps I am just better off trying to tempt more birds in. So anyone got any experience of them and would like to share it, good or bad? Thanks and all.
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They worked for me, but you need to wait til its much warmer - from memory, about May - before you use them, so you need another answer for early in the season.
i also found you need a watering can with a rose with big holes - it clogged up the first one i tried to use.
I use nematodes in my potato bags as I fill them with ordinary garden soil which may contain slug eggs. So far I have had no slug damage to the potatoes but they are expensive.
I have to agree with Verdun. Picking them off in the night is the best way.
Ah well Verdun it says on the packet 'Not for civvies' so name, rank and number would be required lol.
Perhaps its a job I should encourage my youngest son to do. It's my own fault for wanting delphiniums and such like, I just cannot resist them and neither can the slugs.
As Verdun says, it's when those first shoots appear that the slugs and snails do their worst - I keep my eye on the border and as soon as they begin to peek through the soil I put a layer of sharp sand over and around them (about 8" diameter).
I also make sure there's no twigs, stems, branches or leaves of other plants in the vicinity that the marauding slugs could use as a bridge to get to the delphinium shoots - they're crafty little beggars!
We had some lovely delphinium blooms last summer
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I've tried nematodes on my vegetable garden but they didn't seem to make much difference. They do say that they're not so effective on clay soil though, I think.
I have a major problem with slugs and snails and to usually end up resorting to pellets. On a mild, damp evening my patio is covered with an army of snails marching towards the vegetable plot! This does make them easy to pick off but I'm never sure of the best way of despatching them - ideas please.
The nematodes work best on the kind of slugs (e.g. keel slugs) that go into the soil as that is where the nematodes end up. These are the ones which damage potatoes
I've used them in the past and had great results, you could try a collar of sheeps wool, old jumpers or wool pellets that you can get in the garden centre. I keep chickens they eat more slugs and baddies than anything I know.